


The Warmth of Your Hand in Mine

by purenegative (catraverse)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Blindness, Courtship, Crack, Disability, Domestic, F/M, Fluff, Hands, Libraries, M/M, Religious Content, Road Trips, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catraverse/pseuds/purenegative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Human AU. Dean is an Olympics/Paralympics shooter and a part-time auto mechanic, and his boyfriend Castiel is a librarian. A fairly typical love story: Sad Boy No. 1 meets Sad Boy No. 2, together they become Two Happy Boys, or something like it, anyways. Littered with bad jokes, religion, and brotherly love. There will eventually be a road trip and a family reunion.</p><p>This is a WIP, so things will change along the way, tags will go missing or be added in, ratings may change, chapters <i>may</i> be edited, etc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Long story short, watching Supernatural made me want to go on a road trip across the USA. Since I can't take a holiday long enough to do that right now, I thought I'd write a quick road trip drabble. Then, like all things, it got a little out of hand and turned into a full-fledged story.

Sam groaned as AC/DC’s _Highway To Hell_ blasted from the speakers, assaulting his ears. He had just finished switching to the passenger’s seat, and was clearly unhappy that his _History of Rome_ podcast had been cut off.

“Remember, Sam, driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his pie-hole. You honestly think I’m going to drive to your crap about Dino the Queen of Cartilage?"

“It’s Dido, the Queen of Carthage.” Sam rolled his eyes.

“I saw that.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I can hear your goddamn eyeballs moving.”

Sam made a face.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Ugh, whatever. Just keep your ears on the road. We’re on the Interstate 80 just past Fernley, so it’s more or less straight for the next few hours.”

Sam gazed out of the passenger’s side window. Dean began to sing along, tapping the steering wheel. There was asphalt ahead, asphalt behind. And all around them was the blinding orange of the Great Basin. Heat waves rose off the road ahead, sparkling and giving the illusion of water. Distant mountains loomed over the horizon like massive waves, and a trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face. He wiped it away with his hand.

“Use a towel.”

“Dean, I–”

“’m not havin’ your gunk on the upholstery, Sammy.”

Dean pulled out a greying towel out of nowhere and threw it at Sam, where it landed on his shoulder. Sam pouted.

“Cas, you’re kindda quiet back there. No puking in my car.”

“I’m fine.”

Sam glanced at Castiel in the back mirror. Clad in one of Dean’s navy button-ups, he looked distinctly ill at ease, hands clasping the edge of his seat and eyeing the road ahead. His eyes were wide open, a contrast to his usual squint.

“You can never get used to this, huh?” Sam offered.

“I just… this is dangerous and irresponsible on so many levels.”

“Come on, Cas. Have some faith in me. Nobody knows cars like I do.”

“I do believe that.” 

“Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“I pray.”

Dean rolled his eyes and turned around, looking directly at the grey-blue blur in the backseat. “Tonight, babe, you’re going to be saying a different kind of prayer. In my bed.”

Castiel gulped and turned a brilliant shade of magenta.

“Ugh, guys, please.”

Dean smirked at his brother, baring his teeth. “Too much for you, St. Samuel the Sexless?”

Sam snorted. “Everybody knows Cas tops.”


	2. Mr. Beep-Thu-Thump

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Castiel met Dean, and how Dean met Castiel.

When Castiel met Dean for the first time, he was standing at the counter of the Palo Alto Main Library, asking for directions to the Audiobooks section. He had been too startled by the sight of the man’s brilliant smile to notice the white cane in his hand.

“It’s just ahead and to your right,” he said, pointing. “There’s a big red sign, you won’t miss it.”

“Right.” Dean grinned. It took Castiel a moment to make sense of the reaction and the way the man’s milky, glazed eyes appeared to focus on a point somewhere over Castiel’s shoulder.

“Oh, uh. I apologise.”

“No worries, man, I can actually see colours, a bit. So it’s not like you have to explain what red looks like to someone who’s never seen red, y’know? But yeah, your audiobooks have labels in Braille, right?”

Castiel thought back to his tour of the library last week.

“I’m afraid they don’t.”

“Well, that’s just peachy.”

Castiel scratched his head. This was not what he had in mind for his first day on the job, though he could hardly blame the man in front of him for that.

“Perhaps I could help you look for the book you’re… uh, looking for?”

“Perhaps you could.”

Needless to say, Castiel had never done this before. He was a raised a good Christian, love thy neighbour and all. But his involvement in the community volunteering programme was limited to organisation and fundraising. He was in charge of the technical details. Making sure there were enough chairs, calling up the restaurant to order sandwiches for two hundred. Dealing with actual people was Gabriel’s domain.

He laid a tentative hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Would be nice if you could tell me before you grabbed me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Come to my left side, or else I’ll whack you with my cane.”

“Right.”

Castiel did as he was told, and began to pull Dean over to the audiobooks section. Dean did not budge.

“You’re not seriously going to pull me over there like some dog, are you?" 

Castiel let go of Dean and stared in horror. Suddenly, the man broke into a grin, and held up his hands.

“Woah, woah, I was just messin’ with ya, all right? Don’t go bawlin’ on me. Here,” Dean said, extended a hand towards Castiel. “Let me hold on to your arm, and you lead the way. Just walk normally.”

Castiel nodded, and blushed as the man’s large hand wrapped around his elbow, spreading comfortable warmth throughout his right side.

“What was the book you were looking for?”

It all went by rather quickly after that. As it turned out, Dean was looking for a series of books on mythology, and a novel called _The Sheltering Desert_. Castiel scanned the CDs, pushed them into Dean’s hand, and was about to flee to the main office when the man cleared his throat.

“You live around here?”

Castiel nodded, realised his mistake, and began to speak when Dean cut him off.

“Dinner. 6PM, Friday after the next.”

It wasn’t an invitation so much as an order.

“Just hang around after you’re done. I’ll pick you up.”

 

* * *

 

Dean liked to see things. Granted, the most he could see was a blurry montage of greyish colours, all blending into each other. That was on a good day. On a bad day, he could hardly make out the colours to begin with – couldn’t guess where the car was, or whether it was sunny or cloudy. It didn’t matter, though – he had other ways of telling. But it was still nice to be able to point upwards and say, “The sky is a pretty blue today, Sammy”, while at least knowing that the sky was blue.

Dean didn’t like the Palo Alto Main Library much – the lighting wasn’t ideal for his sight. So it was with his other senses that he experienced Castiel the Library Assistant for the first time.

He heard Castiel long before he reached the reception – in fact, that was how he found the reception desk. In the muffled silence, the book scanner seemed to beep incessantly. It was quite obvious that the person using the scanner was not very familiar with the task. He fumbled with the books, thumping the solid wood of the counter often – and Dean guessed that it was a he, from the low, barely audible grunts that occasionally accompanied the thumps.

Beep, thump, beep, thu-thump. He stood there for a while, mesmerised by the rhythm, leaning on his cane for balance. Then a different voice interrupted the music.

“Young man?”

He turned his face towards the voice and was assaulted by a mighty, concentrated whiff of perfume – something floral and saccharine. He held back a cough. There was a large red someone in front of him.

“Uh, you talkin’ to me?”

“Yes, dear. I was wondering if you needed some help? You look a little lost.”

A dry, cool hand slowly came to rest on his left forearm, making his hair stand on end. His mind immediately supplied him with an image of a grandmother in a gaudy dress covered in cherries.

“Naw, that’s all right, ma’am,” he answered, noting the continuing rhythm of beep, thump, beep, thu-thump. “I was just on my way.” He nudged his cane in the direction of the beeps and thumps, and hit something very soft.

“Ooh!”

“Sorry.”

“That’s all right, dear.” The woman continued to grip his hand. “Now, are you really sure? I wouldn’t want you falling over and hurting yourself.”

“’m sure I can manage, ma’am. I have been, for twenty-eight years.”

The coolness finally came off. “All right, dear. Be careful.”

Dean gave a small wave in the direction of the grey-red shape, and walked over to the counter and the navy-blue blur. He stopped when the navy-blue blur was directly in front of him. The beeping, too, stopped.

Mr. Beep-Thu-Thump smelt of his next-door neighbour’s detergent from back in Kansas, with an underlying note of vanilla and incense. Dean guessed that the vanilla was his aftershave or his cologne, but he didn’t think that librarians were the sorts of people who were allowed to wear cologne. The incense had him at a loss. If it were a Sunday, he would have guessed that the man had gone to a church that burnt incense – Roman Catholic, or maybe even Lutheran. But it was a Monday. And in Dean’s opinion, it was simply wrong for anybody who wore his Sunday clothes through to Monday to smell this good.

Anyway, the smoky note of the incense was exciting. Too many men around him smelt the same, like mass-produced musk, or worse, flat beer and stale cigarettes. Mr. Beep-Thu-Thump stood out. Dean imagined a halo over his head. So he took another step forward and grinned from ear to ear.

“Good afternoon. Where do you keep the audiobooks?”


	3. Castiel the Cog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel continues work at the library as he waits for Next Friday to arrive.

The rest of the week flew by in a daze. Castiel’s job demanded little of him. That was not to say that it was not hard work, but it was something he enjoyed. Books made him happy, handling them especially so. He lost his habit of checking his watch every few minutes. His sandwich grew soggy in his rucksack long past his lunch break. Books upon books were lent out and returned to the shelves in their correct places, and the other librarians wondered how the library had ever ran properly before Castiel, who was like a cog to the machine. That was what they called him behind his back – Castiel the cog. He heard everything, though nobody thought he noticed. He didn’t mind.

In his spare time, he researched Braille. On Wednesday, he brought in an English-to-Braille labelling machine bought with his own money, and set about making Braille tags for the library’s collection of audiobooks. He placed a request with the Board of Directors to purchase a collection of Braille books. The director encouraged him, though his co-workers looked at him with scorn. Good Castiel, thoughtful Castiel, Castiel the cog. His hard work brought him only harassment. On Friday, he found the contents of his rucksack stuffed into a toilet bowl. He recovered what he could, and walked home ten kilometres in the rain.

He spent the weekend in bed with a box of tissues and a few cold cans of Campbell’s for company.

He couldn't deny that it hurt him, but he found it in him to let it go. They didn't know. If they knew, they would be embarrassed. Father had always taught him to be forgiving. When Castiel was five, he entered a singing competition at the mall. He sang his favourite song from Mass – _Dear Lord and Father of Mankind_ – at the top of his squeaky, little-boy voice, slurring most of the words and humming his way through more than a few lines. Castiel remembered beaming down at the crowd, expecting them to be joyful in the same way the crowd was when his father gave testimony on Sundays. 

Instead, the nameless faces burst into laughter. He felt sick. Soon, everything was blurry, and later in his dreams, Castiel-the-boy would see hideous faces in the audience cackling and pointing. He ran to his father crying, vowing never to sing again, and his father had told him, no, Castiel. Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Forgive them their laughter, Castiel, for they know not your mind.

Castiel remembered the sensation surrounding his small body as his father embraced him. His father always smelt of his minty aftershave, occasionally with a hint of tobacco – his only indulgence. Warmth radiated from the centre of his chest and cloaked little Castiel in light. The light healed and soothed. Later, long after his father was laid to rest, Castiel would associate the sensation with the presence of the Lord.

When Castiel was eleven and first began to question his beliefs, his father explained that God was not a giant bearded figure floating in the sky, but rather goodness itself. Every good deed and every good thing was a testament to the glory of God. Never had Castiel felt so blessed. 

When Castiel was thirteen, his father passed away. He was at school when they told him, writing an essay on the Battle of Seven Pines when the Principal came into the history classroom and whispered something in Mrs. Meredith’s ear. From the look on Mrs. Meredith’s face, Castiel knew that something bad had happened. But never in a hundred lifetimes would he have guessed that it had happened to _him_.

He remembered sitting in the back of the Principal's car, squashed in the back seat with Gabriel, Samandriel, and Anna. Nobody told them anything, only that there had been "a family emergency". Gabriel sucked on a lollipop, while Samandriel squirmed in his seat and kept wiping his hands on his trousers. Anna wept quietly into Castiel's shoulder. Castiel himself leant back into his seat, one hand around Anna, and the other palm raised towards heaven, eyes closed in prayer. Michael sat in the front seat, leaning against the dashboard.

The rest of the day was a blur, spent taking care of his younger siblings while Michael ran around and made the necessary calls. They all dealt with the news in their own different ways; Anna wept and produced a large number of beautiful paintings. Samandriel screamed and wailed and exhausted himself to sleep. Gabriel was the most worrying; he sat in a corner of his room and devoured sweet after sweet until he had finished everything, and after that, he simply stared at the wall. The family didn't eat that evening; Castiel was afraid that he would burn the house down if he tried to so much as turn on the stove. In any case, nobody was hungry. After his siblings had gone to sleep, Castiel knelt on a broomstick and prayed until his knees bled two red patches into the carpet.

Castiel liked to think that he was used to death; his father being what he was, he spent many Saturdays and Sunday afternoons helping to distribute prayers and sing hymns during Funeral Mass. He knew that his father was going to die some day. But he had expected to be there when it finally happened, thanks to old age or terminal illness. In his mind, he pictured his father lying in his bed, old and white and venerable, surrounded by his sons and daugher as he took his last breaths and was called home to be with the Lord.

Pastor Novak was murdered.

For the first time in his life, Castiel felt true anger. It burned within him, charring the edges of his soul, and he knew that once he unleashed it upon the world, it would be his damnation. Instead, he poured his anger into the soil, ploughing his entire backyard and scattering it with cucumber seeds. They never so much as sprouted.

He refused to attend the trial, leaving the task to Michael and Father Joshua from the church. He cut off the police constable when she told him the name of his father’s killer. Still, he had caught the first name: Friedrich. The name haunted him.

There was no discernible motive, the chief inspector said. Mere madness. The most unsatisfying of reasons to put an antique sword clean through someone’s chest, and for a long time, Castiel dug through his father’s journals, looking for something – anything – that would condemn him. An affair, perhaps, or an illicit trade. Sexual abuse. Child pornography. Human trafficking. For the first time in his life, he hungered for things that made him sick. Nothing came up. His father was innocent.

So it was; Castiel always thought of his father when he was lonely. The clock on the wall above him ticked away the seconds, and in its rhythm he found his father’s voice, calling Castiel, Castiel, for thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

So on Monday morning he returned to work as usual, though his hands trembled and his stomach hurt. He continued with his Braille tags. He worked fast. By Wednesday, he had tagged three-quarters of the library’s audiobook collection and learnt to use the lock on his locker.

He had never locked a locker before; missionary schools had honour systems. It took him three minutes to come up with four digits for the lock – 0139, for his favourite Psalm - and another four to work out how to use it. He mumbled a prayer asking for forgiveness, and went about his day.

By Friday morning, he was restless and confused. Who was this man? Castiel didn’t even know his name. Why had he suddenly appeared at the Palo Alto Main Library on the first day of Castiel’s employment, and why had he asked him for dinner? Of course, he wasn’t the celibate hermit that everyone seemed to think he was. He knew about romance, and dates, and kissing. But he knew that this couldn’t be that. Castiel had offended the poor man at least twice, if not three times – and why would anybody ask Castiel to a romantic dinner, of all people?

He glanced at a group of his coworkers, who were looking back at him with rather unpleasant smiles. A heavy feeling grew in his chest that he recognised to be fear. He went into the bathroom, pulled out his phone, and sent Michael a message:

_I’m going out for dinner after work. Not sure of the location yet. Please call me at 9PM._

Almost immediately, he received a reply:

_Who will you go with? Be careful._

For a moment, he regretted sending the text to Michael. Gabriel wouldn’t have minded that Castiel was meeting a stranger, but Michael was clearly more inquisitive. He decided on the following:

_With a friend from work. I’m worried because this isn’t something I do often._

He hoped that Michael would interpret it as his usual paranoia - in any case, he guessed that Michael did not think Castiel capable of lying, especially to him. He hung around and washed his hands for two more minutes, but there was no reply. He returned to the shelves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All Bible verses are from the King James Version (KLV):
> 
> "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you."  
> (Ephesians 4:32)
> 
> "For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee."  
> (Psalm 128:2)
> 
> Castiel's "favourite Psalm" (Psalm 139) can be found [at BibleGateway](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20139&version=KJV) in its entirety.
> 
> I have never actually read the Bible before this, nor am I terribly familiar with the workings of Christianity! All the information I'm getting is from the few times I have attended church sermons/services with Christian friends, and from online research specifically for this story. If somethings seems off, or if you think that I have interpreted any of the verses too creatively, please don't hesitate to tell me.


End file.
